An Unlikely Frienship
by Maetro
Summary: Angela contemplates her frienship with Brennan. A brief summary of how they met. Oneshot


A/N: I've always been a little curious about the nature of Angela and Brennan's friendship. It seems that every other episode Angela or Brennan is stating that the other is their best friend but there hasn't been much evidence to back it up, so I thought I'd take a shot at examining it.

DISCLAIMER: not mine, I just like to play with them once in awhile.

Angela gave the sketch she was working on one last look, placed it in the scanner and added it to the file then closed out the computer and gathered her things to leave for the evening. It was late, dusk had fallen hours ago and the building was eerily quiet as she headed down the corridor. She knew though, that despite the late hour she was not the last to leave. There was one other person here. One who would likely be here well into the early hours of the morning. She veered from her path and headed across the dim lab to Brennan's office. Sure enough a single bulb lamp angled over the desk cast shadows in the office and across the lab.

"Knock, knock," she said, leaning against the frame of the open doorway.

"Hey, Ange," Brennan replied, barely glancing up. She had a file open in front of her and a small box of artifacts at her elbow.

"It's getting late Bren. You almost done?"

"Yeah, almost." But her response was automatic and slightly distant. She was nowhere near done.

"So, I'm going to grab a bite to eat. Want to come with?"

"No, thanks. I'm not really hungry."

Angela rolled her eyes, a motion Brennan didn't see because she still had her nose buried in her paperwork. "All right then. Night Sweetie."

She got no reply as she backed out of the doorway and continued on her way outside.

There had been a time when Brennan's dismissal would have irritated, even hurt but now Angela, and everyone else at the lab was so accustomed to Brennan's focus on her work that they just shrugged and let it go.

As she climbed into her car and headed across town for something to eat her thoughts went back to when she'd first started working at the Jeffersonian with Temperance Brennan.

Sketching dead people hadn't been something she'd even considered doing when she was in art school or later while she was travelling abroad and honing her skills. It had all started a few years ago, when she was living in Boston. She and a friend were walking to her car after a night of clubbing when they'd been approached by a teen with a knife who threatened to slice them open if they didn't give him all their money. Angela had done a sketch of his face while waiting for the police to come. It led to an arrest within hours and the Boston P.D had started calling her when they needed a composite sketch artist. The money wasn't great but it allowed her to cut back her hours on her 9-5 to give her more time on her own work.

Then the cops had called her to do a sketch on a body they'd found in the woods. She'd been messed up pretty badly and they wanted to see if they could get an idea off her face since her prints didn't lead them to anwhere. One thing had led to another and after a couple of classes at the U, Angela became a certified facial reconstruction artitst who's reputation preceeded her.

Then came the call from the Jeffersonian.

It wasn't what Angela had envisioned doing at this point in her life but she'd been getting bored of Boston and looking for a change so she'd decided to accept the job. She packed up her stuff, moved to D.C. and tried to prepare herself for her new job.

Whatever she had expected of the Jeffersonian, Temperance Brennan wasn't it. The first time they had met, Brennan had barely looked up from the bones she'd been studying to look at Angela, let alone take the time to shake her hand or make small talk. She never socialized with the other scientists at the lab and didn't seem to notice when others were around her.

At first Angela was put off by this. Then they worked their first case together. A young boy had been found in the pond of a farm outside the city. Not much left of him to identify. Brennan had done her thing with the bones and Angela had given him a face. Working together in the small, county morgue and rooming next door to each other at the only motel in the area, Angela had gotten to see the softer side of the formidable scientist. She'd seen the compassionate way she dealt with the bones, saw the pain in her eyes as the facts about the boy's death unfolded. It was then Angela realized that Brennan wasn't cold but focused and she was focused because she cared. Each case touched her deeply and the solving of these people's deaths was more important to her than the social niceities.

From then on, Angela had worked her way past Brennan's exterior and was rewarded by finding a compassionate, quirky, intelligent woman beneath the lab coat. Slowly the other woman had begun to open up to Angela about her past, the pressures of the job and the frivolus things everyone bonded over, like dating, books and movies and and all of sudden, they were friends.

A lot of people didn't understand it. They wondered how such polar opposites could be such close friends but Angela knew it wasn't about common interests or the small talk that Brennan was sometimes painfully bad at it was about understanding and supporting each other.

So maybe Brennan sometimes got caught up in her work and brushed people off or said the wrong thing but she had a good heart and that was all Angela needed in a friend.

FIN.

Thanks for reading. You know what to do.


End file.
